“We are analyzing and pumping out this information as fast as we can. The package you see today — including San Francisco’s most sophisticated ranked-choice voting simulator, masterminded by news applications developer Shane Shifflett and lead software engineer Aurelio Tinio — was completed around 2 a.m. Monday; it was up on our website at 4 a.m. Next we will bring you information about the controversial pension reform initiatives and the races for district attorney and sheriff. Finally, we will put up the full data set, so people can take their own look and draw their own conclusions.”]

“When the Board of Supervisors named Lee interim mayor in January, after former Mayor Gavin Newsom was elected lieutenant governor, Lee promised not to run for a full term. But after two of his biggest political supporters — Rose Pak, the powerful Chinatown lobbyist, and former Mayor Willie Brown — led an effort to draft him into the race, Lee changed his mind.”

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 17, 2011 — An exclusive poll conducted by The Bay Citizen and the University of San Francisco (USF) Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good shows interim mayor Ed Lee poised to win the November 8 mayor’s race handily. The poll shows Lee with broad support across the city, particularly among Chinese voters.

Lee won 31.2 percent of first-place votes, surpassing his closest challenger, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who won 8.1 percent. Supervisor John Avalos finished third, with 7.4 percent of first-place votes.

At baycitizen.org, the poll results power a computer simulation that shows how the election may unfold under “ranked-choice voting.” This is the first competitive San Francisco mayor’s race to use the system that asks voters to select their top three candidates in order of preference.

The Bay Citizen simulation allows readers to view how votes are redistributed after candidates are eliminated. It projects Lee the winner if the election were held today.

On Tuesday, October 18 The Bay Citizen and the University of San Francisco will release poll results on the San Francisco District Attorney’s race, the Sheriff’s race, and Propositions C and D, the two pension reform measures on the ballot.

The poll results are based on telephone interviews of a random sample of 551 likely San Francisco voters between Oct. 7 and Oct. 13, 2011. The survey was conducted by MAXimum Research, an independent research firm, in English and Cantonese; Spanish was not used because only 1 percent of San Francisco voters request ballot materials in Spanish. Of the respondents, 115 were contacted by cell phone and 436 by landline. After the interviews, the data were weighted to match the demographics of the known likely voting population. The sampling error for findings based on the overall pool of likely voters is +/- 4.2 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level. The margin of error for population subgroups is larger.

About The Bay Citizen

The Bay Citizen is a nonprofit, nonpartisan member-supported news organization that provides in-depth original reporting on Bay Area issues including public policy, education, the arts and cultural affairs, health and science, the environment, and more. The Bay Citizen’s news can be found online at www.baycitizen.org as well as in print in The New York Times Bay Area report on Fridays and Sundays. For more information, please visit www.baycitizen.org.

About the University of San Francisco (USF)

The University of San Francisco is in the heart of one of the most innovative and diverse cities and features a vibrant community of students and faculty who achieve excellence in their fields while building a more humane and just world. University of San Francisco students, faculty, and alumni are involved in the entrepreneurial city of San Francisco and work in all industries, from technology to nonprofits. With dedicated professors and exceptional academic programs to choose from, the university offers undergraduate, graduate, and professional students the knowledge and skills needed to develop into ethical leaders who are sought after in their professions. USF’s diverse student body benefits from direct access to faculty, small class sizes, and a broad array of programs and co-curricular opportunities. Informed by the university’s 156-year-old Jesuit Catholic mission, the USF community ignites students’ passion for social justice and the pursuit of the common good. For more information about the University of San Francisco, please visit www.usfca.edu.

About USF Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good

The Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good is dedicated to inspiring and equipping students at USF to pursue lives and careers of ethical public service and service to others. The Center provides a non-partisan forum for education, service and research in public programs and policy-making. The McCarthy Center values civic engagement and seeks to promote public interest research that encourages civil discourse and constructive interaction among the great diversity of residents and officials in the Bay Area. The Center strives to accomplish its goals by being transparent, nonpartisan and rigorous in designing its work and products. For more information please visit www.usfca.edu/centers/mccarthy